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speech; j q/ 



of ini / Q 2, ty 

HON. GLENNI W. SCOFIELD, 

O . ' OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

ON THE BILL OF H. WINTER DAVIS, " TO GUARANTEE TO CERTAIN STATES, 

WHOSE GOVERNMENTS ARE USURPED OR OVERTHROWN, A 

REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT." 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

April 29, 1864. 



Mr. SCOFIELD said- 
Mr. Speaker : — The continuity of constitutional government 
in the seceded States has been broken — the regular transmission 
of political power interrupted. How shall t^ie severed thread be 
joined? By the unconstrained action of the people themselves, 
say the gentlemen in opposition. Very good, sir. I most heart- 
ily indorse that sentiment. When the people of these States 
shall voluntarily ground the arms of their rebellion, and unco- 
erced take upon themselves the easy yoke and light burden of the 
ever gentle Federal Government, it will mark a glad day in these 
uncheerful years of our history. For one, I will be ready to hail 
it. I presume I may speak for my political associates ; we will 
all be ready to hail it. Your care-worn President and weary 
Army — weary with, but not of, the battle — will be ready to hail 
it. The Federal arm, now raised in such terrible power in de- 
fense of the life and liberties of the nation, will fall as gently as 
the tenderest sympathizer will ask upon the heads of repentant 
and pardoned offenders. But that bright day does not yet dawn. 
These erring prodigals still prefer the husks of transgression 
to the fatted calf with which their old political allies would 
entice them back to party — perhaps to duty. Your calf has 
grown to be an ox, so long do they tarry in revolt; and I fear 
they will continue to neglect your feast until our gallant Army 
shall bring them to their stomachs. 
In the meanwhile some kind of government ought to be estab- 






lisbed in those States from which the hostile army has^ieen ex- 
cluded; and while we wait the return of friendly popular action 
there, Congress must legislate or leave the people in the rough 
hand of military law. This bill, designed to discharge that con- 
gressional duty, provides a temporary government and a practi- 
cal mode of State restoration. I will notenier into a criticism of 
its many details, for. I suppose they will be generally acceptable 
to any one who Concedes the propriety of any congressional action. 
Its three prohibitions, as it strikes me, are the most noticeable 
and perhaps only debatable points. It prohibits the assumption 
of rebel debts, prohibits rebel officers from voting, and prohibits 
involuntary servitude. 

The first I will pass by with the single remark that to assume 
the rebel debt would be to offer a high bounty for future rebel- 
lions, and I suppose we will have enough of this one never to 
want another. 

I have but a word for the second prohibition: The ballot is the 
sovereign of this country, and if you permit these officers to vote 
you make them, to the extent of their numbers and influence, the 
rulers of the land. To-day you meet them in battle as outlaws 
and traitors, conquer them, and crown them your king to-morrow. 
If ordinary criminals are properly excluded from the polls, upon 
what principle of comparative justice can these men, guilty, not 
as subordinates or accessories but as contrivers and leaders of a 
crime recognized by all Governments as the highest or deepest 
that can be committed against human laws, ask the high privilege 
of the ballot throua^i Avhich they may complete the ruin of the 
count; y they were not quite able to destroy in the field P* Of the 
third prohibition I have something more to say. 

Mr. Speaker, if God shall give us victory, and enable us to 
subdue or scatter the army of the enemy, is a voluntary reunion 
of the States possible ? I say voluntary because I suppose nobody 
desires a Union always to be maintained by force ; and I use the 
word reunion because nobody proposes a form of Government dif- 
ferent from our present system of State brotherhood. I am not 
now speaking of the several plans of reconstruction, for they are 
designed only as temporary devices, looking to a reunion — a kind 
of scaffolding for repairs, to be torn away when the repairs are 
completed. My question looks beyond the battle and beyond 
reconstruction. When the victory is won, if won it shall be, and 
the transition over, will the insurgent States willingly stay where 
they have been forcibly 'put in their old places in the old Union? It 
has been said by gentlemen in opposition, and it seems to me with 
great truth, that as at present constituted or situated, they will 
not. They disliked the Union three years ago too much to remain 
in it, and dislike has deepened into hate now by the severity of the 
war. They tell us that Ireland, Poland, and Hungary — sugges- 
tive names I admit — after so many years of compulsory alliance, 



do not yet fraternize with their political associates. They still 
sigh for separation and impatiently await the opportune hour 
in which to strike lor independence. What then? Shall these 
States he permitted to depart? No, sir. The great Republic 
N cou Id not survive the amputation. Shall they be retained/then* 
n the long future, by military force? No, sir. Our own liber* 
ties could not survive their permanent subjugation. When the 
Federal Government becomes strong enough te hold eieven States 

To re Ztl -T 11 L ? t0 ° Stl ;? ng ' l tfear ' for the P e °P le ' s liberties. 
!• repeat my idea, if you allow a single stone to drop from the 

mus?beb Pi ;f Ce '- he r h0l 1 St T UCtUre ma ^ faI1 > ^ ^ that stone 
must be held m its pace by drafts upon its surroundings, sup- 

Th?sbfir tHng , *£*> the ! ^Wwere stronger without it. 
aUnlZ g Z G 1° 1 1G P aradoxical conclusion that we can neither 
Mown n tl eS , t0 f 6par V n ° r for cver /orce them to remain. 

"main o, if'/r 1 '"! '^ ^ ^ V B ? makin S them »»*■* to 
emain, 01 if tins language still sounds paradoxical, I will say 

by removing all motive to depart. How can that be done ? } 

CanLnSl ?+' T anty ? f kleaS is the bond of nationality. 
«SS£f « } rtf temt01 7 " nothing, natural boundaries are nothing, 
except as they are tributary to unity of thought. Ireland ^s 
indeed restless, but her restlessness is not owing to unslumbe n g 
animosities of civil wars. Such war, have been more Went 

England and Scotland than they ever were between England and 
Inland; and yet the people of these sections of the British 
empire cordially fraternize; Nor is it owing to English «SuS 

ch^Zut^vT 1 "^^^^ England* than Massa- 
chusetts is to New York. She is a part of the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain, possessing the same rights as any other part, 
with a proportionate representation in Parliament and all depart- 

tZ*ZL %r? nt \i En + gliS !\ re ° ple and Irish l^le do not 
thm. alike That is the trouble. They differ in religion— a 
difference that more than anything else has been the STe of 
popular estrangement throughout the world. They have each a 
long independent national history, full of glorious traditions 

dhectron ^ ST' 1 ? ""5 "jff ' %** ^^ * a S 
(liiection, cut their channels rudely, but deep, and do not readily 

follow new though better channels of political science. These dit^ 

ZT7 uJ^'f ai ' e 0nlY rem ° Ved ^ * years > P erha P« c ^tu- 

S till l and S0Cia ' mtercour ^. But in the case of Ire- 

a ea that 3 SSa ^ m \f com ^ e was cut off by an intervening sea, 

as an 1, ! ° W B «? eXn ° f navi S ation ™ as wide, almost 

as an ocean m our day. The same or similar things may be said 
of Poland and Hungary. They had even a greater difference 

n fe;fl ln the case °4 Poland there was a wid * SSSS 

of renublte shf °* ernn * nt - Havin S been accustomed to a kind 
of republic, she was placed under the control of a solid, silent, 



cast-iron, absolute monarchy. There is no analogy between these 
countries- and Ours. All our States prefer a government republi- 
can in form Even the insurgent States adopted a constitution 
almost exactly like the one they attempted to abandon. We 
have the same national history. Whatever there may be in the 
flast, either of suffering or achievement, worthy to be remembered 
or cherished, is the common property and pride of all the States. 
We follow the same fashions, speak the same language, and 
worship at the same altar. No mountains, no seas divide us. On 
the contrary, the shape of your territory and the course of your 
rivers are of themselves a revelation that the Union of the States 
is an ordinance of God. 

We have but one cause of estrangement, the-difference of opinion 
upon the subject of slavery. Upon that subject can the North and 
the South be induced to think alike ? Can the North be induced 
to sanction slavery and think with thejSouth, or can the South b# 
induced to abandon slavery and think with the North ? Either 
course would accomplish the purpose. Is either practical, and if 
so, which is most practical ? For I will not now ask which is 
most just. Many persons will not consider these questions 
because they think there is an easier and better way. Let the 
North and the South, say they, agree to disagree about slavery, 
each section retaining and acting upon its own opinions unmo- 
lested by the other. This theory is plausible ; it involves no 
expensive and troublesome change. I blame no one for adopting 
it, for I am myself one of its aforetime believers. I never could 
bring my mind to doubt its practicability until I actually saw the 
dissatisfied States go out. Even when warned in advance that 
these States would secede unless the North suppressed their own 
views of slavery and adopted or silently acquiesced in the views of 
the South, I confess I was incredulous. I still believed we could 
hold the Union together and each section retain and utter its own 
sentiments. But the moment the people decided that a man hold- 
ing the sentiments of the North was not thereby disqualified to hold 
a Federal office, secession followed. Experience, that high-priced 
school in which it is said the dumbest learn, has taught its lesson. 
The theory has failed upon trial. Each section, I know, charges 
the failure to the other. " You wrote and spoke and agitated 
against slavery," saya the South, "and thus irritated and mad- 
dened our people into rebellion ;" " and you," says the North, 
" annexed Texas and tried to annex Cuba for the sake of slavery, 
and insisted upon extending it to California and Kansas, and 
thus forced us to discuss its merits." Blame whom you please, 
the slave-holders, the abolitionists, or both ; the fault was in the 
theory. It was not possible to ignore a great subject like slavery, 
connected, as it was, with all our business and all our politics, in 
this busy, thinking, raany-tongued Republic. 

The Democratic party North that clung to this theory so long, 



.5 

and sacrificed to it so much of party ascendency, acting, quite 
likely, from patriotic motives, are very slow to comprehend and 
accept its fallacy, now so clearly demonstrated, although they 
were the prophets of its failure. They cannot see, they say, why 
slavery and freedom cannot coexist in the same country. Why, 
sir, they can coexist, hut not in a country of unlicensed presses 
and uncensored debates without provoking discussions on many 
questions of conflicting interest, and this discussion they con- 
cede, nay, they charge, provokes rebellion. The revolted States, 
knowing that discussion was irrepressible, and fearing that it 
was inimical to their institution; gathered up their slave invest- 
ments and walked out of the Union, leaving their old allies 
doubly amazed — amazed to see the theory in which they had so 
long believed fail, and the prophecy of its failure, in which they 
never did believe, fulfilled. A witty Democrat, in speaking of 
this prophecy by one party and its denial by the other, said to me 
the other day there was this difference between us, "You lied 
when you thought you were speaking the truth, and we spoke the 
truth when we thought we were lying." .They are still bewild- 
ered. I can think of no apter comparison than a hen with a 
double brood of chickens and ducks. Sometimes they try -by 
tender clucking to call back to the peaceful shore the brood of 
secessionists, hatched by their false theories of State sovereignty 
and concessions to the slave power, and again they flutter to the 
water's edge and contemplate embarking with them upon the 
chill waves of revolution. The wild ducks of the South took 
readily to this dangerous element, but so far their twin-hatched 
chickens have been content to cackle on land. 

But to come back to the point. Our fathers, say the advocates 
of this theory, lived in peace upon the same principle. A prece- 
dent is always good with a lawyer and if our fathers lived in peace 
if only for half a century upon this compromise, we can certainly 
follow their example. But those who cite the precedent mistake 
the facts in the case. The compromise of our fathers was, that 
slavery should be tolerated for a time with the understanding that 
it should be gradually relinquished. They did not expect both 
ideas, slavery and freedom, to go hand in hand throughout the 
whole life of the Kepublic. Slavery was to recede slowly and free- 
dom follow steadily. Upon that basis they did get along very 
well, and so could we. Territorial acquisitions and certain dis- 
coveries in the material ,arts, as it is said, changed the attitude of 
slavery altogether. Instead of consenting to go out, it demanded 
expansion and perpetuity. Instead of remaining subordinate, it 
claimed to be the national idea and denounced freedom as sectional. 
This was just reversing the compromise of our fathers, and of 
course it had to be discussed, and at this the slave interest took 
umbrage and resorted to secession and war. If, then, these two 
systems cannot coexist without causing discussion, and slavery 



will not brook discussion, it is clear we cannot have a voluntary 
reunion Unless one sentiment or the other becomes predominant. 
The North and the South must learn to think alike upon this sub- 
ject, or agree to submit their differences to general and free debate/ 
taking no appeal from popular legislative, and judicial action and 
decision, except according to the forms of the Constitution, or, 
upon a rehearing, to ask the second sober thought of the people 
upon any point supposed to be settled wrong. But the slave in- 
terest, anticipating unfavorable action and therefore refusing to 
abide by the decisions of this constitutional umpire, leaves us no 
alternative. To live in peace together we must embrace slavery 
or they must abandon it. 

"Homogeneity," said Jeff. Davis at Montgomery. His opinion, 
I know, is very poor authority with this House, but I believe he 
has thought more profoundly upon this subject than any muddle- 
brained advocate of mixture in the country. His head is clear 
though his heart is cold. Just the reverse is true of those well 
meaning and perhaps patriotic gentlemen with us who still believe 
in the union of opposifes and the harmony of extremes ; their 
hearts are tender and so are their heads. 

If, then, likeness of sentiment is the surest bound of a perma- 
nent ami peaceful Union., which can be most easily adopted as the 
national standard, slavery or freedom ? To adopt slavery involves 
a change of opinion on the part of a great many people, twenty 
millions in the free States alone ; for slavery never had any real 
friends in the free States. Those who are sometimes so considered 
were only its apologists. How can you change the opinions of 
twenty or thirty millions of people ? Remember, sir, that opinions 
are not voluntary things, to be taken up and laid down at pleasure. 
The mind deals in proofs. Belief follows evidence. But if three 
years ago slavery could find no real admirers in the free States, 
who will be its champions now, since it has crowned its many al- 
leged offences against the rights of man with this bloody treason 
against the mildest and most beneficent Government in the world? 
Many, I am sure, who took its dark hand then, not in friendship, 
but only in token of constitutional obligation, will recoil from it 
now in horror when they see it extended reddened with the blood 
of our thousands slain. On the other hand, to adopt freedom as 
the national idea, involves only a change of investment. That 
may not be easy, it will be attended with loss, trouble, and sacri- 
fice ; but still it is possible, while a change of opinion without 
new proofs is not. It is from this view ofHhecase that thousands 
of men, formerly pro-slavery from principle and practice, have be- 
come anti-slavery from Union policy* Living in slave States, 
they did not regard the institution as immoral, and therefore 
sanctioned it. But when they saw it used by anti-republicans, 
and disguised monarchists, for the subversion of popular liberty 
and the division of this Government — a Government weak, in- 



deed, when in conflict with i\m feelings of its honest citizens, but 
always majestically strong when its flag was assailed — into two 
insignificant, wrangling, and hostile nationalities, they rose above 
local prejudices and State policy and personal interest, arid said to 
anti-slavery men and patriotic men everywhere, we will join you 
to save our country, to overthrow the rebellion, and to break into 
fragments the stone upon which it is built. For the present ex- 
tinguish the great conflagration ; for the future remove the in- 
flammable material from which it was kindled. For the present 
seize the mad revolutionists of the South ; for the future destroy the 
virus that poisoned their blood. 

In the debate here a. few days ago, the consistency of some gen- 
tlemen from the loyal slave States who were said to be moderate 
emancipationists many years ago, and are only moderately so 
now, was contrasted with the alleged changes of their more radi- 
cal colleagues. Gentlemen who boast of their consistency seem 
often to forget that there is such a tiling as being upon different 
sides of the same question at different times and each time right. 
The question itself often changes sides. I can very well under- 
stand how a citizen of a slave State many years ago, giving little 
attention to the morality of the institution, might fall in with the 
settled policy of his section and decline to disturb the harmony 
of his neighborhood by what might seem to him then the unne- 
cessary or untimely introduction of abolition agitation, and yet 
now become an earnest and honest emancipationist in the belief 
that emancipation alone could preserve the unity of the country. 
There is such a thing as being right in the wrong time and wrong 
in the right time. I do not say that those who introduced eman- 
cipation in the slave States many years ago were right in the 
wrong time, but sure I am that all such gentlemen who retard 
emancipation now are wrong in the right time. Bat this plan of 
Union does not necessarily involve immediate emancipation, and 
I therefore hail all whose labors tend, however sl6w, to the gen- 
eral result as co-workers, for a voluntary and peaceful reunion of 
all the State's. 

In these remarks I have confined myself to a single point, the 
presentation of slavery as an element of discord and disunion, 
and as such asked its removal. I have waived its inhumanity to 
the slave, its corruption of the master, its injustice to white labor, 
its impoverishment of the soil, its intolerance in politics, its 
despotism in government, its inconsistency in all things. Ad- 
vocating State sovereignty, it blots out all divisions of its 
empire, molds all its' States into a single power, and calls it 
the "South." Professing liberality, it yet proscribes from the 
lowest office the most exalted patriotism, the most brilliant 
abilities, the highest learning, and the ^purest integrity, if found 
blended with the slightest compassion for the slave. Claiming 



8 



•'*/: 



to be law-abiding, the mob, the fcowie-knife and the bludgeon 
are its chief ministers of justice. Professing to be constitutional, 
it suspends the great writ of liberty in time of peace, tramples 
down the trial by jury when found in its way, contracts freedom 
of speech to the right to advocate its unchristian cause, revives 
constructive treason, and in Philadelphia, Boston, and Kansas 
indicts of that high crime respectable citizens who spoke too 
rudely of its traffic in men. All this, and much more, 1 have 
omitted because they were not in the line of my present purpose. 

And now Pcall upon those gentlemen who think there are some 
concessions within the range of possibility which if made would 
conciliate the slave power, and restore the.Union without the ne- 
cessity of resorting to emancipation, to point out what they are. 
Name the items. Of course you will not mention the proclama- 
tion, confiscation, and what you call the unconstitutional acts of 
the Administration, for the rebellion preceded all these. On the 
territorial question there was nothing left to concede. The Wil- 
mot proviso had been voted down, the Missouri compromise re- 
pealed, and the Dred Scott opinion ordered and obtained. Even 
James Buchanan, so gifted in abasement, could find nothing more 
in the shape of theory to give them, and in its stead tendered them 
the low villainy of Lecompton. The fugitive act of 1850, with its 
slave-hunting officers, the posse comitatus the conclusive affidavit 
of the master, habeas corpus and trial by jury abolished, and the 
United States to foot the bill, left nothing more to be conceded 
here. 

Concession exhausted and conciliation still a failure ! Here- 
after let all concession be in favor of freedom ; and in all our 
legislation let us approximate, as rapidly as the interests of the 
two races will permit, the homogeneity of universal emancipation, 
and upon that basis make the Union perpetual. 



Gibbon Brothbrs, Printirs, 271 Pbnxa. Ave., Wasuinctoh, D. C. 



!RAg12 



